Reviews

This film is agonisingly awful. It is composed of endless scenes of Zidane virtually doing nothing, sometimes overlaid with some silly "deep" statements about or by Zidane. The film focuses on a very petty aspect of his life: football. There is nothing about where he came from, who he is, the difficulties he may have confronted in French society (he is of Algerian extraction after all), or what he thinks about the society he lives in. The film is imbued with the post-modernist jargon that was trendy until recently, and this makes the film pretentious, yet it is vacuous and banal. The film is excruciatingly boring; it is a pain to watch, and it is better to watch paint dry. During the screening where I watched the film, an annoying aspect of the experience was the many people leaving early and banging the door on the way out.

The story is entirely made up, and the script takes too many liberties in the portrayal of the life of Vermeer and people around him. There is only one notice given that the story is based on a novel, but that is not good enough.

It is a silly story, it is an unkind portrayal of someone (an art giant) via a fictional story, and therefore the film itself is suspect. One also wonders why this film was made at all – silly, and a waste of so much money. An entire film devoted to some prudish titillation...

Rating 2/10

At the end of T2 we had the clear impression that that was it -- no more Terminators. Errr... they are back with a rehash of the T1 story with a few mediocre actors; these even make Arnie look good. The script is pathetic -- just to generate some cheap jokes. The plot, if one call it that, is flimsy, full of holes, and guaranteed to enable the production of yet another sequel. Finally, it is evident that the film sets and paraphernalia were generated on the cheap.

This film is very bad, and a grand disappointment. I am certain that on the basis of this Arnie won't get elected to the governorship of California. (3/10)

This is the Brazilian version of `Boyz N the Hood' – but City of God is two notches better, yet with a few shortcomings.

The initial scene of a chicken running away is masterful. If one has had the experience of running after chickens, then one must admire how the cameraman managed to keep up the pursuit until the poor thing disappeared under a police van. Surely, the Humane Animal Society was present ensuring the humane treatment of the bird – although the miraculous escape from underneath the wheel could not have been planned.

Now is the film depicting reality and is it providing some incisive criticism? Not quite. The favelas surrounding Rio and always perilously close to sliding off the sides of the hills after a rainstorm contain masses of people. Increasingly, it is the favelas or the outlying quasi-cities/slums -- built to remove the pressure off Rio from the migration from the Northeast -- that cast ominous shadows over the rest of the city. They are cities because their populations are huge; they are part of the bigger city, yet a city apart. The same repeats itself in the rest of Brazil. The crime rate is legendary, and it paints a rather bleak future for the country unless something is done on the double.

City of God is about the internal dynamics of a quasi-city/slum. The city is portrayed as devouring itself – suggesting the bitterly ironic name of the city. Gang vs. gang with the occasional corrupt opportunistic intervention by the police. Crucially the spillover effects of this criminal culture don't envelop the posh areas of Rio. Any well-to-do Brazilian watching this film won't sweat too much – the violence is happening elsewhere. Here is where the film is a bit weak – it is hardly a political statement or an indictment of the Brazilian model. It is just internecine warfare, not a crime wave descending on the middle classes by the beach, and the film doesn't make a political statement by suggesting that the inequality has anything to do with the problems depicted in the film. Unfortunately City of God is a shallow story, all be it a well told one.

One more thing is evident in this film and it is a problem affecting all of cinema. All films must fall within the commercially imposed time limits, i.e., the absurd two-hour mark. Unfortunately, it is impossible to weave a rich story in such a limited time slot. Several characters are developed early on, although one can hardly empathize with them or understand them. The first five characters are introduced, but soon afterwards, several are bumped off. Then right smack in the middle of the film another important character is introduced – errr… isn't this a bit late? Whoa! Mr. Meirelles man, you only have two hours to tell a story! This would have been acceptable if the film were a wee bit longer, but suddenly it is difficult to discern who is who and what makes them tic. The way this film handles this is by having `chapter headings'. The story is compressed and explained by these subtitles. It may be borderline-effective, but what this film needed was another half hour developing the `smell' of the place. This was wonderfully achieved and portrayed in the initial football (aka soccer) scene in a barren field. A few more scenes of the open sewers or the fermenting garbage and Meirelles would have had a masterpiece (although another hour to make a political statement would also have been necessary!).

My score = 7/10

Saul Landau wrote in CounterPunch (www.counterpunch.org/landau1224.html): `Miramax film exec Harvey Weinstein quietly yanked The Quiet American from the market, despite the good reviews it had gleaned.'

So since this seemed to be a case of censorship, I had to see it! Given the politically prudish times we live in it may be that film producers don't want to suggest that Americans could possibly be the bad guys. ‘The Quiet American' does have reference to this, e.g., arming unsavory generals, fomenting massacres for propaganda purposes, terrorizing the population for political ends… So what? This has been known all along. Furthermore, the US has done equally disgusting things in Chile, Angola, Indonesia, … hey, the list is actually quite long! Given that the political use of violence is not the principal theme of the film one wonders what other censorship takes place.

About the film: Acting by Michael Caine is very good. Acting by Brendan Fraser is so-so. Do Thi Hai Yen plays the role of the innocent appealing beauty very well, but obviously knows more about her situation than is revealed in the film – her sister may just as well have been her pimp.

The screenplay is not entirely true to the novel on which it is based. The film may focus too much on the love affair of the main actors, perhaps downplaying the context that is emphasized in the book. The film is half a murder plot to get rid of the unwanted competition as much as it is about the unsavory machinations of the not-so quiet American. The book places more emphasis on the latter.

Worth seeing? Yes, specially, if one wants to know how easily offended the new self-appointed political censors are. My rating 7/10.

`Frida' is a shallow and almost mono-chrome rendition of an extraordinary colorful person living in revolutionary times. Unfortunately, the film is focused on the personal tribulations of Frida and the serial infidelities of her husband, Diego Rivera. Both artists aren't placed within the exciting cultural revolution that engulfed Mexico pre-WWII. Great artists don't appear in a vacuum, but depend on a nurturing culture; this film doesn't even attempt to mention such context.

The film goes from one personal drama involving Diego to another. The focus is their relationship and Frida's personal tragedy involving her disabilities. Both artists are short changed - giants in real life boxed into a small frame. However, a redeeming feature of the film is the stellar acting of the Frida & Diego roles. With such a cast and great theme, so much more could have been achieved by throwing in some more historical or cultural context. It is also a shame that the film was produced in English; why can't an audience be assumed to be mature or literate enough to read a few subtitles? Mexicans may rightly barf at the portrayal of their artists and this particular slice of history.

One is also struck at the liberties the script took in portraying Frida's life. Frida having an affair with Trotsky? Where did they get this irrelevant snippet? Oh yes, Frida may have had some homosexual escapades. The film makes a big deal of this.

British people are wedded to the past. Living in England, one is dished up a glamorized version of the Victorian golden era, but it is rare to hear critical comments about this period. Even today, the films produced about this era deal with the upper classes playing their little games or solving yet another silly murder.

Gosford Park is a movie that debunks and de-glamorizes the Victorian era. Although the surface image of this era may be glamorous due to the opulent setting and the sophistication of its characters, the film reveals the upper classes as a shallow, snobbish and mean spirited bunch. The aristocrats barely tolerate each other, and their meetings have a lot to do with obtaining allowances from the wealthy factory owner who grudgingly subsidized the lot. This time the tolerance gives way to outright hostility because the industrialist refuses to distribute allowances that were forthcoming in the past. Once the economic relationship is brought into question, the false gentility gives way to a bare disdain.

What sets the film apart is that it is also willing to explore the people who are usually in the background in other films. The butlers and the maids also have a story, one often intertwined with that of their masters. At Gosford Park all the servants lose their identity - they are not referred to by their own names, but are referred to as `servant to X'. Not only is their identity erased, but also more pernicious aspects of the abuse of power become evident. Yet another myth of this most prudish of eras is debunked and it pertains to sexual exploitation. It is clear from the film that the alternative to working at this ghastly house is abject poverty, and thus there was little alternative to what amounted to prostitution.

The film culminates with the murder of the industrialist - and it reveals that everyone has an ax to grind. Below the veneer of upper class gentility resides an egoistic and shallow bunch of people with little regard for others. The servants are victims of their circumstances, but some of them are perhaps willing participants.

Gosford Park does us all a favor by demolishing the glamorized history of the time. It is time to take the good bits of history, and safely jettison and question the remainder. This film will make you think twice before going to the next Victorian period film that pops up.

This is the "Home Alone" for adults, and it is totally predictable. The main question: why was this film ever made? Just to make the already jittery Americans even more distrustful? There is some astonishing film technique -- how does the camera manage to cut straight through the coffee maker in the kitchen? Wow! The camera travels through the house in a most remarkable fashion -- feels as if the house has been split in two to enable the camera to move.

OK, it is based on a historical event -- thus there is a reason to make this film. There are some elements that are intriguing, like the gullibility of the Nazis -- falling for the tricks and the fortune telling.

But the film is SO POORLY acted, it reeks of phony sentimentality, and one wonders why this film was made at all.

Come on Werner, you can do much better.